The Three Investigators and the Secret of Terror Castle (2009)

Jupiter has a surprise birthday party given by his relatives at his junkyard meeting place of the boys who investigate, Jupiter the leader, Pete and Bob.The relatives bring a cake, he does not like this. His parents died around his birthday years ago in an accident. A clown that no one invited grabs a video, drops it in liquid and runs out. The tape is partially destroyed but Jupiter sees his mother and father on the tape. They were investigators. He did not know that and they died 2 days after that tape was made. They give clues about a man they were investigating Steven Terrill. Jupiter intends to find out what happened.The 3 investigators travel to land near where his parents talked about on the tape. They were investigating Steven Terrill and this was his "terror" castle. The kids find Terrill was skilled at what he did. There are amazing things the movie creators made work in this movie.The owner used steam heat to run the things he created. A elevator, lights, fireplace, moving shelves and more. The story is very scary at times. The kids go into Terror Castle and meet Caroline who thinks she is psychic and believes in ghosts. The boys don't know what to make of her. The girl's father is a Sheriff and does not like these kids. Later Caroline helps them.A couple of things I did not like about this movie was the inflation of physic stuff, ghost and curses. Also the scary scene with running, darkness and background stuff in the dark just lasted too long.In the end the the belief in ghost in the goings on in the castle are put to rest until they hear a suspicious noise at their meeting place but you might say the psychic stuff and the ghost end up dead and buried.The story has a nice ending.

Having read The Three Investigators in the 70's & 80's, I've wondered what they would be like in the 21st century. Well, this is it. Sort of. But first you have to get over the fact that other than the words 'Steven Terrell' and 'Castle', there is nothing in the movie that resembles the book. You also have to get over Bob being a curly haired redhead without glasses.While this was the first book, it is the second film that was made. The first being The Secret of Skeleton Island. Like the first film, this is a German production, filmed in South Africa. They slipped up at the end of the movie when the Rolls Royce drove on the wrong side of the road… for California, but the correct side for South Africa. As with the first film, most of the plot points were ridiculous. With access to 21st century technology they had GPS, but why didn't they do an internet search to find out who Steven Terrell was? In the book they did the research and went in knowing everything about him. Why move the castle from the Hollywood Hills, near their home, to the Sierra Nevada Mountains? What's the deal with the psycho sheriff? Is that view Germans have of Americans? If you have a county sheriff he as to be psycho? The tie in with Jupiter's parents was also ridiculous. And the most ridiculous of all was having the same villain as the first movie. What is it with Germans need for a French villain? Any movie that makes me use the word ridiculous this much can't be rated higher than 5 stars, but I'll give it 6 because The Three Investigators are a part of my life and I'll watch anything about them (like Harry Potter, if you read the books, you'd understand). Had I watched this movie under a different title, and didn't try to associate the movie with the book characters, I would have enjoyed it more. At some point I will watch it again and enjoy it more as I've numbed myself to the flaws. The characters are done well, except for Bob (no offense to Cameron Monaghan's acting. He just isn't Bob).

Reading earlier reviews I deduce that "T3I and the Secret of Terror Castle" does not meet their expectation. We easily understood that because this movie is really targeted to adolescent and below. If I was that age I would probably truly enjoy the movie but only if I haven't read the book yet. Kids would easily enjoy this movie because it's cool enough, such as the castle.I was afraid to watch this movie for the reason that it would tarnish my good memory of Three Investigators and it prove to be true. When I was reading the book I always feel fascinated, the location, the characters it seems just magical. Watching the movie, it seems that it is a different world from the one in the book.As I said that it would entertain many kids which just watching it now and never had reading the book before, we adults that enticed to watch it in which we demand something else than those kids will be disappointed. We adults hope to see interesting and eccentric characters and dialogs, that cool accents from Jupiter Jones, more peculiar music soundtrack, and more magical-feel but normal-looking towns would not get what we want. We won't even entertained by the case which is the one most interesting thing why we want to read the next novel.For young men don't miss this one for it is really rare this kind of movie around: Kids Detective that investigate peculiar case without an element of Action in which nowadays detective movie would always combined.

This was my absolute favorite of the Alfred Hitchcock and the 3 investigators series - the book is a fantastic, I actually picked up a used copy a few years ago just to re-read one of my childhood favorites.The movie does not do justice to the book - While I thought the character actors/actresses were great, the acting of the sheriff left something to be desired - I also hated to see the movie re-written to have the destruction of this terrific castle at the end - but the sets were great - I loved seeing the way the castle was designed.Hopefully we will see more of the 3 investigators series, with better writing, and more attention to the other minor roles, with better acting and lines.